Neil Armstrong took his final small step, and the world mourns the loss of that rarest of creatures: the humble hero. That a man can walk on the Moon and stay down-to-Earth reassures me greatly about humanity.

Here’s a special edition of “missing links” to commemorate Neil Armstrong’s death, because I’m rather emotional about it, I don’t want to wait till next Saturday, and there is some incredible stuff out there. This list is completely free of any cheap masturbatory attempts to use his death to talk about space exploration. There will be plenty of time for that. Today, I’d like to celebrate history.

A beautiful statement from Armstrong’s family. “For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

“”We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again.” That was the moment a hundred million people around the world also started breathing again.” The great Tim Radford beautifully explains what it was like to witness the Moon landings and what it meant for the world.

Here’s what happens when a big event happens at the end of August on a Saturday night. NBC says that astronaut Neil Young died. Telegraph: 1st US woman in space. Dutch paper: 1st man on Earth. Clearly, there was a lot about Armstrong we didn’t know.

And finally… Here’s Buzz Aldrin hitting a moon landing nut in the face. I like to picture that somewhere, out there, thousands of people are mouthing off about Armstrong’s death. And somewhere, else, driving towards them, knuckles white and countenance grim, is Buzz.

Thanks, Ed. I was pretty sure you’d put up a list like this. I’m feeling pretty emotional about it myself. Last night I sat outside and just stared at the moon, and gave a wink, and I played the old moon landing tapes on my tablet. There was just something about seeing both the videos and the actual moon at the same time that made the landing videos all the more powerful.

There is one link that perhaps you might like if you haven’t seen it before—this one where a ham radio operator, Larry Baysinger, ‘eavesdropped’ on the transmissions. He thought he might catch some stuff that was censored, but he says what he heard pretty much came through on the radio seconds later (he was able to confirm the Onion’s headlines were not entirely accurate http://www.arrl.org/eavesdropping-on-apollo-11